Tag: Palestine

War on Gaza: To end the Israel’s slaughter, the world must sideline the US / by Nicolas J. S. Davies and Medea Benjamin

A Palestinian child mourning loved ones killed in Israeli strikes at Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah on 18 June 2024 (Ramadan Abed/Reuters)

Israel’s US partner in genocide is the biggest barrier to ending the massacre. A UN ‘Uniting for Peace’ resolution would radically change the terms of the international debate

Reposted from Middle East Eye

On 13 June, Hamas responded to persistent needling by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken over America’s proposal for a pause in the Israeli massacre in Gaza.

The group said that it had “dealt positively… with the latest proposal and all proposals to reach a cease-fire agreement”. Hamas added, by contrast, that, “while Blinken continues to talk about Israel’s approval of the latest proposal, we have not heard any Israeli official voicing approval”.

The full details of the US proposal have yet to be made public, but the pause in Israeli attacks and release of hostages in the first phase would reportedly lead to further negotiations for a more lasting ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the second phase. But there is no guarantee that the second round of negotiations will succeed. 

As former Israeli Labor Party prime minister, Ehud Barak, told Israel Radio on 3 June: “How do you think [Gaza military commander] Sinwar will react when he is told: ‘but be quick, because we still have to kill you, after you return all the hostages’?”

Meanwhile, as Hamas pointed out, Israel has not publicly accepted the terms of the latest US ceasefire proposal, so it has only the word of US officials that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has privately agreed to it.

In public, Netanyahu still insists that he is committed to the complete destruction of Hamas and its governing authority in Gaza, and has actually stepped up Israel’s vicious attacks in central and southern Gaza.

The basic disagreement that President Joe Biden and Blinken’s smoke and mirrors cannot hide is that Hamas, like every Palestinian, wants a real end to the genocide, while the Israeli and US governments do not. 

Self-inflicted isolation

Biden or Netanyahu could end the slaughter very quickly if they wanted to – Netanyahu by agreeing to a permanent ceasefire, or Biden by ending or suspending US weapons deliveries to Israel.

Israel could not carry out this war without US military and diplomatic support. But Biden refuses to use his leverage, even though he has admitted in an interview that it was “reasonable” to conclude that Netanyahu was prolonging the war for his own political benefit. 

The US is still sending weapons to Israel to continue the massacre in violation of a ceasefire order by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Bipartisan US leaders have invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of the US Congress on 24 July, even as the International Criminal Court (ICC) reviews a request by its chief prosecutor for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes, crimes against humanity and murder.

The US seems determined to share Israel’s self-inflicted isolation from voices calling for peace from all over the world, including large majorities of countries in the UN General Assembly and Security Council.

But perhaps this is appropriate, as the United States bears a great deal of responsibility for that isolation. By its decades of unconditional support for Israel, and by using its UN Security Council veto dozens of times to shield Israel from international accountability, the US has enabled successive Israeli governments to pursue flagrantly criminal policies and to thumb their noses at the growing outrage of people and countries across the world.

This pattern of US support for Israel goes all the way back to its founding, when Zionist leaders in Palestine unleashed a well-planned operation to seize much more territory than the UN allocated to their new state in its partition plan, which the Palestinians and neighbouring countries already firmly opposed.

The massacres, the bulldozed villages and the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 to a million people in the 1948 Nakba have been meticulously documented, despite an extraordinary propaganda campaign to persuade two generations of Israelis, Americans and Europeans that they never happened.

Genocidal territorial ambitions

The US was the first country to grant Israel de facto recognition on 14 May 1948, and played a leading role in the 1949 UN votes to recognise the new state of Israel within its illegally seized borders.

President Dwight Eisenhower had the wisdom to oppose Britain, France and Israel in their war to capture the Suez Canal in 1956, but Israel’s seizure of the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 1967 persuaded US leaders that it could be a valuable military ally in the Middle East.

Unconditional US support for Israel’s illegal occupation and annexation of more and more territory over the past 57 years has corrupted Israeli politics and encouraged increasingly extreme and racist Israeli governments to keep expanding their genocidal territorial ambitions.

Netanyahu’s Likud party and government now fully embrace the Greater Israel plan to annex all of occupied Palestine and parts of other countries, wherever and whenever new opportunities for expansion present themselves.

Israel’s de facto expansion has been facilitated by the US’s monopoly over mediation between Israel and Palestine, which it has aggressively staked out and defended against the UN and other countries.

The irreconcilable contradiction between the US’s conflicting roles as Israel’s most powerful military ally and the principal mediator between Israel and Palestine is obvious to the whole world. 

But as we see even in the midst of the genocide in Gaza, the rest of the world and the UN have failed to break this US monopoly and establish legitimate, impartial mediation by the UN or neutral countries that respect the lives of Palestinians and their human and civil rights.

Qatar mediated a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in November, but it has since been upstaged by US moves to prolong the massacre through deceptive proposals, cynical posturing and Security Council vetoes.

The US consistently vetoes all but its own proposals on Israel and Palestine in the UN Security Council, even when its own proposals are deliberately meaningless, ineffective or counterproductive. 

‘Uniting for Peace’

The UN General Assembly is united in support of Palestine, voting almost unanimously year after year to demand an end to the Israeli occupation. A hundred and forty-four countries have recognised Palestine as a country, and only the US veto denies it full UN membership.

The Israeli genocide in Gaza has even shamed the ICJ and the ICC into suspending their ingrained pro-western bias and pursuing cases against Israel.

One way that the nations of the world could come together to apply greater pressure on Israel to end its assault on Gaza would be a “Uniting for Peace” resolution in the UN General Assembly. This is a measure the General Assembly can take when the Security Council is prevented from acting to restore peace and security by the veto of a permanent member.

Israel has demonstrated that it is prepared to ignore ceasefire resolutions by the General Assembly and the Security Council, and an order by the ICJ, but a Uniting for Peace resolution could impose penalties on Israel for its actions, such as an arms embargo or an economic boycott.

If the US still insists on continuing its complicity in Israel’s international crimes, the General Assembly could take action against the US too.

A General Assembly resolution would change the terms of the international debate and shift the focus back from Biden and Blinken’s diversionary tactics to the urgency of enforcing the lasting ceasefire that the whole world is calling for.

It is time for the United Nations and neutral countries to push Israel’s US partner in genocide to the side, and for legitimate international authorities and mediators to take responsibility for enforcing international law, ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine and bringing peace to the Middle East.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nicolas J S Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

Amid Carnage and Ecological Damage, Greenpeace Demands Gaza Cease-Fire / by Jessica Corbett

Children walk amongst the rubble during the Eid al-Adha celebrations in Gaza on June 15, 2024 | Photo: Khames Alrefi/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

“We call for the bullets and bombs to be silenced so that the growing voices for peace can be heard,” said the group

Reposted from Common Dreams

As part of its quest for “a green and peaceful future,” Greenpeace International on Tuesday urged the Israeli government and Hamas to “unequivocally agree to support and abide by” a recent United Nations Security Council resolution and declare “an immediate and permanent cease-fire” in the Gaza Strip.

“We call for the bullets and bombs to be silenced so that the growing voices for peace can be heard,” the environmental advocacy group said in a statement that acknowledges “the horrific events” of October 7—in which Hamas-led militants killed more than 1,100 people in Israel and took around 240 hostages—and the over 37,000 Palestinians who Israeli forces have slaughtered since.

In addition to the rising death toll and at least 85,523 Palestinians injured by the war, “the majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forced to flee their homes,” Greenpeace highlighted. “Much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble, famine and disease are rife, nowhere and no one is safe. Sanity and humanity must be restored in the face of this unfolding genocide.”

“Beyond the urgent need to end the civilian suffering and ecological devastation, all parties must resume peaceful negotiations.”

The organization pointed to South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice as well as a U.N. commission’s report from last week that concludes the Israeli government and Palestinian militants have committed war crimes.

“We call on Hamas to immediately release all hostages,” Greenpeace said. “We call for the Israeli government to immediately end the blockades on the supply of food, water, medicine, and fuel to the people of Gaza and release all illegally detained civilians.”

“Violence is never the answer, it only brings more violence,” the group emphasized. “Beyond the urgent need to end the civilian suffering and ecological devastation, all parties must resume peaceful negotiations towards a lasting peace built on safety, justice, and equal rights for all. International law must be upheld.”

The United States and European countries that are arming Israel have faced international pressure to use their leverage to halt crimes by its forces. Greenpeace called for “a global embargo on all arms sales and transfers that could be used to further increase the toll of war crimes to be answered by both sides once this war and conflict ends.”

“Greenpeace recognizes the deep historic roots that need to be discussed and negotiated if a permanent peace is to be established,” the group said. “Greenpeace calls for an end to the illegal occupation of Palestine. Greenpeace supports the UNSC resolution ambition that ‘Israel and Palestine live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders, consistent with international law and relevant U.N. resolutions.”

The Greenpeace statement was released the same day that the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) published a preliminary assessment of the “environmental impact of the conflict in Gaza,” which features three main sections. The first part addresses the state of the environment and natural resources in the Hamas-governed enclave before October 7.

The second section discusses topics including water, wastewater treatment, and sewage systems; solid waste collection and treatment; destruction of infrastructure and related debris; energy, fuel, and associated infrastructure; marine and coastal environments; terrestrial ecosystems, soil, and cultivated lands; and air pollution.

The third section focuses on chemicals and waste associated with armed conflicts as well as construction, destruction, and flooding of tunnels in Gaza—which, as the report notes, “is a small, densely populated coastal area, the environment of which has been affected by repeated escalations of the decadeslong conflict, unplanned urbanization, and population growth.”

“We urgently need a cease-fire to save lives and restore the environment.”

Inger Andersen, UNEP’s executive director, said in a statement that “not only are the people of Gaza dealing with untold suffering from the ongoing war, the significant and growing environmental damage in Gaza risks locking its people into a painful, long recovery.”

“While many questions remain regarding the exact type and quantity of contaminants affecting the environment in Gaza, people are already living with the consequences of conflict-related damage to environmental management systems and pollution today,” she continued. “Water and sanitation have collapsed. Critical infrastructure continues to be decimated. Coastal areas, soil, and ecosystems have been severely impacted.”

“All of this is deeply harming people’s health, food security, and Gaza’s resilience,” Andersen added. “We urgently need a cease-fire to save lives and restore the environment, to enable Palestinians to start to recover from the conflict and rebuild their lives and livelihoods in Gaza.”

The UNEP report and Greenpeace’s statement followed a study that was posted to SSRN earlier this month and is currently under peer review. Ben Neimark, a co-author of the preprint and lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, said that “while the world’s attention is rightly focused on the humanitarian catastrophe, the climate consequences of this conflict are also catastrophic.”

As Common Dreams reported, Neimark’s team estimated that up to 200,000 Gaza buildings were destroyed or damaged during just the first four months of the war, and the resulting climate costs were greater than the annual emissions of each of the world’s 135 lowest-emitting countries.

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

The number of forcibly displaced people reaches a record 120 million / by Peoples Dispatch

A Sudanese refugee in Chad. Photo via UNHCR

New and existing conflicts and wars remain the largest contributor in forcing people to leave their homes followed by climate catastrophes such as prolonged droughts and frequent floods

Reposted from People’s Dispatch

The number of forcibly displaced people across the world has reached a record level of 120 million by May 2024, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This means that one in every 69 people in the entire world is forcibly displaced.

The number of forcibly displaced people continues to increase, despite nearly 6 million people, including one million refugees, returning back to their homes globally last year. 2023 also became the 12th consecutive year with an increase in the numbers of forcibly displaced people according to the UNHCR flagship Global Trend Report, published on June 13. 

The largest number of overall forcibly displaced people still come from Syria, where nearly 13.8 million people are still living as refugees or internally displaced people due to a war which began in 2011.  

In recent years, the largest number of displaced people have come from Sudan, where the war between the nation’s army, led by Abdel Fatah al-Burah, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamad Hammad Dagalo (Hemedti) broke out in April 2023. The war has forced nearly 11 million people to flee their homes, cities and villages by the end of 2023. This includes over 9 million internally displaced people, which is the largest number ever recorded for a country.  

Millions have also been displaced in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Myanmar, Yemen and several other countries which have witnessed or are still witnessing prolonged conflicts. 

Over 1.8 million Palestinians have been displaced by Israeli forces in Gaza in a genocidal war ongoing since October 7, making nearly 75% of all Palestinians in the besieged territory displaced, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the designated refugee agency for displaced Palestinians.   

The number of displaced doubled since 2014

Globally, the number of displaced people has doubled since 2014. That year, there were around 59.2 million displaced people in the world. The numbers have since increased to 117 million by the end of 2023, and reaching 120 million in May this year. The number of refugees has also doubled in the same period.

The primary cause of forced displacement across the world is armed conflict. The next major reason for forced displacement is related to climate catastrophes. Devastating floods and prolonged droughts, among other catastrophes force people to move and sometimes cross borders, even at the risk of becoming stateless.

Those trying to cross borders to escape war, poverty, or climate catastrophe are often at risk of losing their lives every year crossing terrain such as deserts and seas without adequate resources. Migrants also risk become victims of various kinds of crime such as murder, rape, kidnapping, torture and human trafficking.

“Without better cooperation and concerted efforts to address conflict, human rights violations and the climate crisis, displacement figures will keep rising, bringing fresh misery and costly humanitarian responses,” said Filippo Grandi, the head of the UNHCR.

People’s Dispatch

U.S. increasingly isolated in its support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza / by Ramzy Baroud

Biden stands alone. | Andrew Harnik / AP

Reposted from Peoples World

On June 6, Spain joined South Africa’s case at the United Nations top court, accusing Israel of genocide.

This move followed a decision by Madrid and two other western European capitals—Dublin and Oslo—to recognize the State of Palestine, thus breaking ranks with a long-established U.S.-led western policy.

As per American thinking, the recognition and the establishment of a Palestinian state should follow a negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestine, under the auspices of Washington itself.

No such negotiations have taken place in years, and the U.S. has, in fact, shifted its policies on the issue almost entirely under the previous administration of Donald Trump. The latter had recognized as “legal” the illegal Jewish colonies in Palestine and Israel’s sovereignty over occupied East Jerusalem, among other concessions.

Several years into the Biden administration, little has been done to reverse or fundamentally alter the new status quo. More recently, Washington has done everything in its power to support Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Aside from supplying Israel with the needed weapons to conduct its crimes in the Strip, the U.S. has gone as far as threatening international legal and political bodies that tried to hold Israel accountable, thus ending the “extermination” of Palestinians in Gaza—a term used on May 20 by the International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan.

Washington continues to behave in such a way despite the fact that Israel refuses to concede to a single U.S. demand or expectation regarding peace and negotiations. Indeed, Israel’s political discourse is deeply invested in the language of genocide, while the Israeli military is actively carrying it out.

The West Bank, where the bulk of the Palestinian state would supposedly take shape, is experiencing its own upheaval. Violence there is unprecedented compared to recent decades. Across the West Bank, tens of thousands of illegal Israeli settlers are torching homes, cars, and attacking Palestinians with total impunity, in fact, often alongside the Israeli army.

Yet, despite the occasional gentle reprimand and ineffectual sanctions on a few settlers, Washington continues to stand firmly by its declared policy regarding the two states and all the rest. Not a single mainstream Israeli politician, certainly not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government of extremists, is willing to entertain the thought.

This is not surprising, as U.S. foreign policy often goes against common sense. Washington, for example, fights losing wars simply because no administration or president wants to be the one associated with failure, retreat, or, worse, defeat. America’s longest war in Afghanistan is a case in point.

Due to the massive influence wielded by Israel, its allies on Capitol Hill, in the media, along with the power of lobbies and wealthy donors, Tel Aviv is clearly far more consequential to U.S. domestic policies than Kabul. Thus, the continued U.S. military and political support of a country that is being accused of genocide and extermination.

This reality, however, has created a political dilemma for Europe, which has often blindly followed U.S. steps—or missteps—in the Middle East.

Historically, there have been a few exceptions to the post-WWII rule. French President Jacques Chirac defied U.S.-imposed consensus when he strongly rejected Washington’s policies in Iraq in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion and war.

Such important but relatively isolated fissures were eventually repaired, and the U.S. returned to its role as the uncontested leader of the West.

Gaza, however, is becoming a major breaking point. The initial Western unity in support of Israel, immediately after the Oct. 7 events, has splintered, eventually leaving the U.S. and, to some extent, Germany, as the countries most committed to the Israeli war.

The strong, more recent stances by several western European countries accusing Israel of genocide and joining forces with countries in the Global South with the aim of holding Israel accountable, is a major shift unseen in many years.

It could be argued that the extent of Israeli crimes in Gaza has exceeded the moral threshold that some European countries could tolerate. But there is more to this.

The actual answer lies in the issue of legitimacy. Western leaders are not shying away in phrasing their language as such. In a recent piece, speaking on behalf of the “group of elders,” former president of Ireland Mary Robinson warned against the “collapse of international order.”

“We oppose any attempts to de-legitimize” the work of the ICC and ICJ, through “threats of punitive measures and sanctions,” Robinson said.

The Elders’ opposition, however, made no difference. On June 5, the U.S. House of Representatives passed resolution H.R.8282 aimed at authorizing sanctions on the ICC.

References to the collapse of the legitimacy of the West-established international order have also been made by many others in recent months, including by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

In his statement requesting arrest warrants for accused Israeli war criminals, Karim Khan himself made that reference. For some, the issue is not just about the Gaza genocide. It is also about the future of “the West” itself.

For a long time, Washington has succeeded, at least in the eyes of its allies, in keeping the balance between the collective interests of the West and a nominal respect for international institutions.

It is now clear that the U.S. is no longer capable of maintaining that balancing act, forcing some countries into adopting independent political positions, the future outcomes of which shall prove consequential.

We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about Palestine, the Middle East, and global issues for over 20 years. He is an internationally syndicated columnist, an editor, an author of several books, and the founder of The Palestine Chronicle. His books include ‘The Second Palestinian Intifada’, ‘My Father Was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth.’ His latest book is ‘These Chains Will Be Broken’. Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter. He is currently a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University.

Gaza resistance sources say fear is rising U.S. pier will be used for forced displacement of Palestinians / by Ahmed Omar

A SHIP TRANSPORTING INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN AID IS MOORED AT THE US-BUILT TRIDENT PIER NEAR NUSEIRAT IN THE CENTRAL GAZA STRIP ON MAY 21, 2024. (PHOTO: STRINGER/APA IMAGES)

Critics warn the U.S.-constructed pier off Gaza’s coast is being used for military purposes. Now a source in the Gaza resistance says there are indications it will be used to facilitate the forced displacement of Palestinians

Reposted from Mondoweiss

In March 2024, U.S. President Joe Biden announced in his State of the Union address that the U.S. would be building a temporary “floating pier” on the Gaza shoreline to deliver humanitarian aid to the starving population in Gaza. “No U.S. boots will be on the ground,” he promised.

Since then, however, critics have raised concerns that the pier is not only being used for “humanitarian” purposes but is being employed for military activities that aid in the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.

An intelligence source from within the resistance in Gaza, who spoke to Mondoweiss under conditions of anonymity, says there are mounting signs the U.S. pier could also be used to forcibly displace Palestinians. This would provide an alternative to the original Israeli plan of forcing Palestinians into the Sinai, which was rejected by Egypt early on in the war.

“The floating pier project is an American solution to the displacement dilemma in Gaza,” the source said. “It goes beyond both the Israeli solution of displacing Gazans into Sinai…and the Egyptian suggestion of displacing [Gazans] into the Naqab [desert].”

Instead, the source said, the U.S. pier would be used to facilitate the displacement of Gazans to Cyprus, and then eventually to Lebanon or Europe.

These concerns have been brought into sharp relief after the Israeli army committed a massacre in Nuseirat refugee camp last weekend, killing at least 274 Palestinians in order to retrieve four Israeli captives. 

The U.S. pier was at the center of coverage of the massacre, as multiple news sources, videos, and eyewitness accounts from Gaza indicated that U.S. forces may have been involved in the operation and that humanitarian trucks entering Nuseirat were hiding the Israeli soldiers that carried out the massacre. Live Aljazeera footage depicted what appeared to be a humanitarian truck driving through the camp accompanied by two armored military vehicles, while other videos circulated showing Israeli soldiers using a helicopter allegedly in the area of the U.S. floating pier as an evacuation point, taking advantage of U.S. air defenses. 

The claim was quickly dismissed by U.S. Central Command, but Palestinian factions such as the Popular Resistance Committees said it would be treating the pier as a military target moving forward. Following the accusations and the threats, the UN’s World Food Programme has suspended aid deliveries through the pier, citing concerns over the security of the WFP team. 

‘Humanitarianism’ covering up ethnic cleansing?

The anonymous resistance source told Mondoweiss that “according to our intelligence, the pier will be used to displace Palestinians to Cyprus through evacuation ships and then to Lebanon after undergoing a screening process.” 

The source asserted that this plan has already been discussed with Lebanese authorities, and that “it was agreed with Najib Mikati, the Lebanese Prime Minister,  to receive $1 billion in aid to Lebanon to be paid through the European Union, with an additional $250 million to be paid to his own companies.”

In exchange, Lebanon would receive “between 100,000 and 200,000 Gaza residents through the floating pier via Cyprus, which is expected to take place during the fall this year,” the source said. 

According to the source, the background to this alleged arrangement is part of a broader “pressure cooker” strategy being enacted on the people of Gaza, “starting with the halting of money transfers as of last Ramadan and continuing with the current Israeli control over and closure of the Rafah crossing until such a time that an American company can take over, as well as the demoralization of the resistance through continuous operations, which is to be followed by allowing an acceptable number of people into Egypt through the Rafah crossing via the Hala Consulting and Tourism company, in order to be naturalized in accordance with the new Egyptian citizenship law.”

The next step in this process would then supposedly follow, in which a few hundred thousand Gazans would be transferred from Gaza to Cyprus. Notably, the U.S. is already using Cyprus to load humanitarian aid into cargo ships and transport it to the pier.

“They are expected to leave for Cyprus in waves and to mix with other illegal immigrants from Syria, after which they will either be assisted in making the journey of illegal migration to Europe — which is opposed by the European Union — or they will be sent to Tripoli and replace the Syrian refugees there, in accordance with the wishes of the Lebanese government,” the source continued. “They would then be resettled in northern Lebanon or Lebanon’s Sunni areas, far away from areas of Hezbollah influence and control.”

The source emphasized that such a scenario is not without precedent, as previous waves of Palestinian immigrants tied to Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, a rival of PA president Mahmoud Abbas, have been settled in Lebanon in the past. 

“Previously, there has been animosity between newer waves [of immigrants] and previous Palestinian groups loyal to the resistance,” the source explained. “This has led to conflict in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in the past.”

Finally, the source also stated that alleviating the Syrian crisis and striking a deal with Bashar al-Asad to ease punitive measures for potential Syrian returnees who may have been part of the opposition would help make the prospect of an influx of Gaza refugees more palatable for the Lebanese government, especially if it is tied to an influx of monetary assistance to Lebanon’s faltering economy. Notably, several reports have already emerged that many Syrian refugees are at imminent risk of forcible deportation, and hundreds have already returned amid anti-refugee sentiment in Lebanon.

Mondoweiss has been unable to verify the claims relayed by the anonymous source regarding the potential plan.

Notably, however, Lebanon has been used in the past on a smaller scale for receiving political exiles from Palestine, as in the case of the deportation of 415 Palestinian men affiliated with political factions such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad in 1992, when they were exiled to a no-man’s-land in between northern Palestine and southern Lebanon called Marj al-Zuhur.

Mounting widespread concern

Regardless of whether such a plan comes to pass, different political factions in Gaza have expressed concern regarding the intentions behind the pier, while others have cautiously welcomed it despite reservations.

Hamas welcomed the U.S. project and the efforts to aid Palestinians, but it also emphasized that the pier would not be a reliable alternative to aid through land-based crossings, which is more efficient. Many international organizations have also echoed these concerns, confirming that aid through land crossings remains the most reliable and efficient option. Hamas has also rejected the presence of any foreign military force as part of the pier’s operations. 

Other Palestinian political parties such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) have come out more strongly against the pier, raising alarms about its potential misuse for the forced displacement of Palestinians or protecting Israeli forces occupying Gaza. The PFLP warned Arabs, internationals, and Palestinians from working on the pier and asserted any troops deployed with the pier would be dealt with as an occupying force. 

Likely due to these fears, the pier has already been subject to mortar shell attacks. This is likely a message sent by Palestinian resistance factions that they are ready to deal with the pier militarily if it is used for military purposes rather than for delivering aid.

Since its introduction, the pier has experienced a series of challenges and setbacks. Part of it came loose due to sea conditions, and some of its staff were injured while operating it in unclear circumstances. The pier had to be taken for maintenance just weeks after it was deployed and was relocated back off Gaza a few days ago. 

Once fully operational and at full capacity, the pier is expected to deliver 150 trucks into Gaza daily. However, as of this writing, the World Food Programme has continued suspending aid delivery due to the aforementioned safety concerns for WFP teams. 

While the U.S. has continuously reasserted its purely “humanitarian” aims, the circumstances surrounding the pier’s creation, including the exclusion of Palestinians from its management, the involvement of Israel in its security, and now the recent suspected U.S. role in the Nuseirat massacre, has all reinforced suspicions among Palestinians concerning the true intentions behind the pier.

Ahmed Omar is a political economy expert focused on the MENA region

Bernard Lown’s political activism and medical achievements are celebrated in Maine / by W. T. Whitney

Photo: Anadolu Agency (AA)

South Paris, Maine

Bernard Lown was honored June 7 in Lewiston, Maine. The place was the massive Bates Mill, the former workplace for migrants mostly from Quebec who made textiles. The minting of the “American Innovation $1 Coin” in Lown’s honor had been announced in May. It was Lown’s birthday; he was born in Lithuania in 1921 and died in 2021.

The occasion featured the unveiling of a portrait of Lown painted by Robert Shetterly. Lown joins others honored by Shetterly in the series of portraits he calls “Americans Who Speak the Truth” (AWTT).

The event, attended by the writer, offered ample recognition of Bernard Lown’s medical accomplishments and his dedication to collective struggle for justice. A prime concern here is that celebration of Lown’s successes may have obscured how and why Lown did engage with the mass social and political movements of his era. Insight on that score may contribute to an understanding of how individuals now might involve themselves in big political and social catastrophes of our own time.

Maine-resident Shetterly explained to the gathering that individuals being honored through his portraits were, or are, heroes who exemplify creativity, courage, and/or passion for justice. Exhibitions of Shetterly’s portraits and educational programs based on his subjects have circulated throughout the country.

University of Maine President Joan Ferrini-Murphy, reported that Lown participated in and provided support for programs of the University’s Honors College. Doug Rawlings, a founder of the Veterans for Peace organization and head of its Maine chapter, praised Lown as an inspiration for peace advocacy.

Lown had strong connections with Maine. He arrived in Lewiston in 1935, attended high school there – at first not speaking English – and studied at the University of Maine. City officials of Lewiston and Auburn in 1988 renamed a bridge connecting the cities as the Bernard Lown Peace Bridge. Maine VFP staged a rededication of the Peace Bridge to Bernard Lown on the 2022 anniversary of the U.S. nuclear attack on Hiroshima.

Lown’s accomplishments were many: invention and introduction of the DC cardiac defibrillator (he chose not to apply for a patent), introduction of hospital cardiac care units, establishing that sick cardiac patients remain active, and urging physicians to be caring and empathetic with patients.

He founded the group Physicians for Social Responsibility in 1961.With Soviet cardiologist Evgeni Chazov, he founded International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in 1980. In 1985 they won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Lown became politically engaged with mass movements early, on the side of working people, and against headwinds.

He and his family had confronted the Hitlerite danger in Lithuania. High-school student Lown, according to AWTT, “was outraged at the sight of policemen arresting the unconscious, bleeding striker, while allowing his strike-breaking assailant walk free. Lown jeopardized his relationship with his family and joined the striking workers …The striking French-Canadian workers were accused of being part of an international communist conspiracy.”

This was the Lewiston–Auburn shoe strike of 1937. The Maine Army National Guard was called out. There was confrontation between strikers and police on what is now the Bernard Lown Peace Bridge.

Lown was briefly expelled from Johns Hopkins Medical School for violating the rule that no sick white person would receive a Black donor’s blood. He earned a suspension for inviting a Black physician to speak at the medical school.

He belonged to the Association of Internes and Medical Students (AIMS), a U.S. organization associated with the International Union of Students (IUS). Soviet Bloc students were members of the IUS, which weighed in on post-war peace, anticolonialism and more.  In 1947 Lown wrote “an effusive write-up of IUS’s founding” in the AIMS magazine The Interne.

Lown, an officer with the U.S. Army Reserve, was called up for the Korean War.  He defied the requirement that he indicate political affiliations. The Army allowed him an honorable discharge and drafted him as a private. He recalled that after receiving an undesirable discharge in 1954, “I was without a job and couldn’t get a job …wherever I’d go the FBI was one jump ahead.” 

Then, reports the Harvard Crimson, “[Frederick] Stare, [nutrition professor at the Harvard School of Public Health,] won notoriety for hiring … [Lown] who had been accused of holding communist sympathies.”

Lown’s attitude toward Cuba is revealing. He told an interviewer that, ““I have been to Cuba six times and learned much about doctoring in Cuba … If impoverished Cuba can provide first-class health care for its people so can other developing countries. Perhaps it is even possible for rich USA, if only it ceases viewing medicine as a marketable commodity.”

To return to the question posed at the start here: how do citizens focusing on their own lives and their own reactions to political happenings become part of mass movements the way Bernard Lown did? Do they identify as members of a social class?

New York Times columnist David Brooks, remarkably, seems qualified to explain. The U.S. mainstream media barely acknowledges the existence of social class. For a representative writer actually to examine the origins of class consciousness suggests he may know something.

Brooks stated recently that, “students at elite universities have different interests and concerns than students at less privileged places,” also that “the elite universities are places that attract and produce progressives.” Therefore, “American adults who identify as very progressive skew white, well-educated and urban and hail from relatively advantaged backgrounds.”

(We hold back on critiquing Brooks’ notion of “very progressive” and his idea that working-class and oppressed people are unlikely to identify as such.)    

Brooks, continuing, cites an authority who argues that, “[J]ust as economic capitalists use their resource — wealth — to amass prestige and power, people who form the educated class and the cultural elite … use … resources — beliefs, fancy degrees, linguistic abilities — to amass prestige, power and … money.” Brooks, presuming that the excluded may be resentful, envisions “a multiracial, multiprong, right/left alliance against the educated class.”

He describes a progression: individuals experience their own political awakenings, realize their perceptions are shared, and think of themselves as a larger whole. He pictures two sets of people, two social classes, who find they are at odds with each other. He provides a roadmap of sorts showing that politically-engaged individuals, in large numbers, may well become part of mass political and social movements.

In any case, Bernard Lown, involved with struggles that continue now, lauded for achievements that were extraordinary, does matter, and not least for the model he is now of dedicated political engagement. 

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

The Israeli Govt Continues to Wage Brutal War in Gaza / by Assaf Talgam

The managing editor of Zo Haderech Assaf Talgam (center), addressed the People’s World 100th Birthday Celebration during the CPUSA’s 32nd National Convention in Chicago, June 7, 2024 (Photo: Taylor Dorrell / People’s World)

Reposted from the Communist Party of Israel

While this terrible situation is known to many around the world, almost none of it appears in mainstream Israeli media. Since the beginning of the war, all major media outlets in Israel, including all Hebrew language TV and radio stations and almost all newspapers, have completely ignored the atrocities perpetrated by the Israeli military in Gaza. Thus, large segments of the Israeli public remain ignorant of the crimes committed by their government.

As you know, the current assault on Gaza followed a massacre carried out by Hamas on October 7 against Israeli civilians in towns and villages bordering the Gaza strip. For many months after this terror attack, Israeli media coverage of the conflict focused almost exclusively on the crimes committed by Hamas, ignoring the ongoing developments. While the mainstream Israeli media was broadcasting the same images of the Hamas attack again and again, tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed in Gaza Israeli bombings.

The silence on war crimes in Gaza on behalf of the Israeli media is, of course, intentional. The collaboration of the media is critical for maintaining public support for the war. Mainstream media outlets do not try to keep the public informed, but rather misinformed about what is going on in Gaza. And this is actually the more moderate and respectable part of the Israeli media. Right wing elements like channel 14, known for its fanatical support for Netanyahu, are in fact actively celebrating the deaths of Palestinian civilians, while urging the military to commit more war crimes.

More recently, the Netanyahu government has cracked down on Al-Jazira, banning the network from working in Israel and the occupied territories because its broadcasts portrayed Israel in a negative light. The Israeli communications minister even went so far as to confiscate filming equipment from the AP agency, because they had sold footage to Al-Jazira. The equipment was later returned, as following the international backlash the government realized it had gone one step too far.

It is within this context that our newspaper now operates. Zo Haderech – which in Hebrew means “This path” – is a weekly published by the Israeli Communist Party since 1965. Alongside the Arabic-language Al-Ittihad (meaning “The Union”), which was founded in 1944, it is the main media outlet of the party. In addition to the printed editions, both newspapers also maintain active websites that are updated on a daily basis.

Zo Haderech is a relatively small publication. It was born out of necessity in 1965, after the rupture within the Israeli Communist party left the daily Hebrew language newspaper in the hands of a breakaway faction. Al-Ittihad, on the other hand, used to be the only Arabic language daily newspaper published within Israel, and for many years was also the most popular and widely read publication among the Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel. It is still considered one of the leading Arabic language newspapers in Israel.

Since the beginning of the war, both communist newspapers have been struggling against the media silence, trying to bring the Israeli public news of the ongoing situation in Gaza. Since we cannot report directly from the warzone, we have been publishing information and reports from reliable Palestinian sources on the ground as well as international NGO’s and UN agencies working in the Gaza strip. Since the beginning of the war in October, our readership has greatly expanded as critical thinking Israeli citizens sought trustworthy information on what is really taking place. 

In addition to our role in breaking the media silence on the war in Gaza, we have two further important political tasks: making dissenting voices inside Israel heard, and giving political direction to the anti-war movement. The Israeli Communist Party and its allies in Hadash, the democratic front for peace and equality, are the only political forces inside the country that have consistently opposed the war since its inception and have sought to rally public resistance. 

We maintain that the war is a disaster for both Palestinians and Israelis. It exacts a terrible price in human life, destroying the Palestinian people, poisoning Israeli society and destroying the remnants of Israeli democracy. Therefore, we emphasize to the Israeli public: no people can base its future on the destruction of another; there can be no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The continuation of the war will not bring Israelis security, nor bring back the hostages taken by Hamas. These can only be liberated in the framework of an exchange deal, in which Israel will release Palestinian political prisoners in return for the hostages. It is clear that such an exchange can only take place once hostilities have ceased.

In the early days of the war, we were alone in saying this. Such arguments were seen by most Israeli Jews as detrimental to the war effort, bordering on treason and support for the enemy. However, in recent months political conditions have begun to shift. Tens of thousands inside Israel have been internally displaced following the Hamas attack in October and the ongoing conflict with Hizballah along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Following eight months of death and destruction in Gaza, the Netanyahu government has failed in achieving any of its stated war objectives, with the army still bogged down in Gaza and taking casualties; the Israeli economy is facing a recession; and the international pressure on the country is mounting. All these have started to make people more receptive to our anti-war message. Perhaps most important regarding the shift in public opinion is the humanitarian plight of the civilian hostages still being held by Hamas – especially since more and more evidence points out that many of the hostages have already been killed by the indiscriminate Israeli bombings.

As a result of all these causes, more and more Israelis are beginning to understand that the war serves only Netanyahu, his allies and the capitalist war profiteers.

But ending the war is only the first step for a stable and lasting peace. Even among those Israelis who have come to support ending the war, not all agree on the path to a viable, long-term solution. The Israeli Communist Party maintains that the only bases for a just and lasting peace are the end of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories it conquered in June 1967; the establishment of an independent Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital, alongside the State of Israel; and a just solution to the question of the Palestinian refugees respecting their right of return. Zo Haderech and Al-Ittihad carry this message. As communists, it is our political role not only to protest and fight injustice, but to guide the way to change.

The inhumane war of destruction waged against the Palestinian people in Gaza is our most urgent political concern, but it is far from being the only one. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence against Palestinian villagers has reached unprecedented levels. Well-armed and organized settler gangs have been attacking Palestinian villages and shepherding communities, burning, looting and destroying property, often injuring or even killing Palestinians who stand in their way. Soldiers usually accompany these attacks, serving as armed escorts and standing idly by as the settlers commit their crimes. Our newspapers are among the only ones in Israel to report on these attacks, relying on the testimonies of local Palestinian communities, as well as on comrades who stay with these communities and try to protect them.

Inside Israel too, political struggles abound. In recent years, and particularly since the re-election of Netanyahu in 2022, Israel has been undergoing severe democratic backsliding. Netanyahu, facing several corruption and bribery charges, is set on dismantling legal checks and balances on his power. Before the war, the efforts of the government were concentrated on a judicial reform intended to nullify the authority of the supreme court. The proposed reform was deeply unpopular and ignited massive opposition demonstrations in the streets. The government was forced to withdraw, but the war has provided it with a suitable cover under which to continue these attempts. With the media attention concentrated on the war and the hostages, and the general atmosphere of crisis, the government faces less criticism and opposition when enacting its authoritarian policies.

One of the more dangerous developments in this context is the politization of the Israeli police under the influence of the far-right minister Ben Gvir. In recent months the police play an increasingly active part in political repression, serving the interests of the minister. This includes the use of violence to break up demonstrations; police raids against the headquarters of the Israeli communist party in Nazareth, supposedly protected under law; and the forcing of Arab-Bedouin citizens off their lands in the Negev desert and the destruction of their homes. This problem runs deeper than the appointment of a racist and religious fanatic as minister by Netanyahu. It is deeply troubling that many within the ranks of the police openly identify with the minister’s violent and repressive agenda. This is a result of the poisoning of Israeli society by decades of occupation in the Palestinian territories, as well as the discrimination and fueling of nationalist hatred toward Arab citizens of Israel.

Economically, the war constitutes a heavy burden on the Israeli economy. As always under capitalism, the first to pay the price are the poor and the workers. In order to finance the war, the government has cut social spending across the board. Price hikes have also become frequent, as trade has decreased and many businesses engage in war profiteering. Netanyahu’s neoliberal coalition wishes to place this economic burden squarely on the shoulders of the working class, while Israeli and foreign capital continues to make extraordinary profits.

In the face of these serious challenges, Zo Haderech and Al-Ittihad call for a united front of the Arab and Jewish workers. The Communist Party of Israel calls for the strengthening of the Jewish-Arab nature of the struggle for peace and social justice. Partnership in the struggle between Jews and Arabs is vital for the campaigns for social justice and the defense of democracy, for equality of civil rights, for national rights for the Arab-Palestinian national minority in Israel and against any manifestation of racism or discrimination.

On the international level, we wish to strengthen all peace-minded people around the world who are involved in the struggle against Israeli aggression and occupation, and salute those who act in solidarity with the Palestinian people and the peace forces inside Israel. Media outlets like People’s World, who regularly report on the developments in Israel-Palestine and carry the message of peace throughout the world, play an important role in this struggle. Your solidarity, comrades, is of vital importance. It is a major contribution to saving the peoples of Palestine and Israel from disaster.

Assaf Talgam, is the managing editor of the Communist Party of Israel weekly Zo Haderech, during an event sponsored by People’s World held in Chicago on last Friday night. Talgam participated in the 100th anniversary celebration of People’s World on behalf of Zo Haderech.

Thousands march on D.C. as Israeli raid kills another 274 Palestinians / by C.J. Atkins

Demonstrators carry a red banner representing a ‘red line’ in front of the White House in Washington, Saturday, June 8, 2024.| Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP

Reposted from Peoples World

Massive street protests erupted worldwide after the Israeli military killed 274 Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp as part of a “hostage rescue operation” in Gaza. Four Israeli captives taken prisoner by Hamas on Oct. 7 were recovered in the maneuver, amounting to 68 people killed for every individual extracted. The mass killing pushes the Gaza war death toll, already at over 36,000, even higher.

The rescue-operation-turned-massacre was met with praise from President Joe Biden and other Israeli allies and came immediately after the leaders of the U.S. Congress set July 24 as the date they will host Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an honored guest. It has also likely sunk negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire.

In the U.S. capital, tens of thousands of people surrounded the White House Saturday to demand the Biden administration immediately halt weapons shipments to Israel and stop enabling the genocide in Gaza.

A giant banner, reportedly nearly two miles long and listing the name of every Palestinian known to have been killed since Oct. 7, snaked through the streets of the city.

The D.C. demonstration, dubbed the “People’s Red Line,” in reference to Biden’s empty threat to trim aid to Netanyahu if he “crossed the red line” of attacking Rafah, saw thousands converge on the president’s home. Expressing the anger toward Biden that demonstrators feel, a marcher from Iowa, Arianna Streeter-Floyd, said, “He chooses to keep silent.”

Silence was the administration’s response to Saturday’s protests, as well. No statement or acknowledgment was issued, even as the windows of the White House rattled from the roar of the demonstration outside.

For months, the ceasefire movement has been pressuring Biden to change his Gaza policy with protests, petitions, resolutions, and “vote uncommitted” campaigns in the Democratic presidential primary.

Though these actions have prompted changes in rhetoric by U.S. officials, including a belated call for some form of ceasefire, and forced symbolic pauses on a few weapons shipments, overall, the president has not altered course.

Speaking about the war at the Communist Party USA’s National Convention in Chicago this weekend, Co-Chair Joe Sims said Biden’s refusal to budge has dire consequences for not just Gazans but also the people of the U.S.

“The battle lines are clear. We’re fighting a fascist danger at home and a genocidal war abroad. And to defeat the danger at home, we’ve got to defeat the war abroad,” Sims said. The Democratic president’s Israel policy continues to take Palestinian lives while increasing the odds of Trump returning to power, Sims argued.

“Let’s make it plain, Biden’s Israel policy must be defeated today so that” Trump and MAGA can be defeated tomorrow.” Sims told the assembled CPUSA delegates and a national online audience: “We have to keep the pressure on. In fact, turn it up, turn it way up! Mass public pressure is the only thing this ruling class understands.”

U.S. support for Israel goes beyond providing weapons and diplomatic cover, however. According to Axios, personnel linked to a “U.S. hostage cell” operating on the ground in Israel also “supported the effort to rescue the four hostages.” Further details on how many U.S. personnel were involved, their military affiliation (if any), and exact role have yet to be disclosed or discovered.

Many allege that footage of the raid convoy filmed by Al Jazeera depicts Israeli counter-terrorism forces using trucks that look like aid delivery vehicles to carry out the operation. The Israel Defense Forces denied such claims, dismissing them as “lies spread by Hamas media,” a frequent response to past proof of atrocities carried out by the IDF.

Video circulating online claims to show an Israeli military helicopter evacuating rescued captives on the beach in Gaza right beside the U.S.-built ‘humanitarian aid pier.’ | Screenshot via The Palestine Chronicle

After the Israeli commandos made their way into the complexes where the captives were held, hundreds of soldiers and armored battalions then blasted into the area. Video posted online by The Palestine Chronicle depicts what appears to be a hostage airlift via military helicopter right beside the U.S. military’s “humanitarian pier” on the beach in Gaza.

Some believe there may be even more direct U.S. involvement. Analyst Vijay Prashad called the raid an “act of terror,” and accused Biden of using the pier “to sneak U.S. troops in an aid truck to join” in the Israeli operation. While no evidence can yet confirm Prashad’s allegation, speculation and conspiracies are spreading fast alleging that aid delivery pier is doubling as a staging point for U.S. military assistance to Israeli military maneuvers in Gaza.

In the wake of the swirling rumors, the U.N. World Food Program announced Sunday it will stop using the pier for now because of security concerns. Director Cindy McCain said she was “concerned for the safety of our people after the incident,” she said. Two WFP warehouses were also blown up this weekend, McCain said.

The pier has hardly delivered any aid since it was built in mid-May. After operating for less than a week, it was damaged by a storm and only came back online Saturday—the day of Israel’s hostage rescue operation.

Palestinians survey the damage and look for victims in the aftermath of the Israeli bombing in Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Saturday, June 8, 2024. | Jehad Alshrafi / AP

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, is demanding an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the massacre at Nuseirat. He said there must be immediate “international intervention” to halt the catastrophe in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

“Israel continues to exploit international silence and U.S. support to perpetrate crimes that violate all international legitimacy resolutions and international law,” Abbas declared.

Ayman Odeh, a member of the Israeli Knesset for the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) coalition, slammed the Israeli media’s propagandistic praise for the action in Gaza Saturday. “When Israelis finally see themselves in the mirror that the world has given them, they will discover very difficult sights…ones that are not shown to them in the news,” he said.

Back in D.C., one participant, Aiya, told media it’s important to show Gazans that “they are not alone.” A leader in the George Washington University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, she was involved in the GWU’s campus encampment before it was attacked and cleared by police several weeks ago.

Aiya said, “We say at campus protests, ‘We will not rest till you divest,’ and we mean that. We have been out here tirelessly…how could we tire when we see the people of Gaza endure literally hell on Earth.”

C.J. Atkins is the managing editor at People’s World. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from York University in Toronto and has a research and teaching background in political economy and the politics and ideas of the American left.

Peace Activists Gather Against War in Gaza; Tens of Thousands Protest Across Israel / by CPI

Thousands participated in the annual rally against occupation and war held by Partnership for Peace at Habima Square in Central Tel-Aviv, June 8, 2024 (Photo: Zo Haderech)

Reposted from the Communist Party of Israel

Demonstrators turned up Saturday night, June 8, in Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Ra’anana, Haifa, Caesarea, Karkur, Jerusalem, and other 50 locations around Israel. In Tel Aviv alone, according to organizers, one hundred thousand attended. Earlier with the weekly demonstrations against the far-right government, the Partnership for Peace held a rally in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square calling to “stop the war as the occupation marks its 57th year,” referring to Israel’s occupation during the 1967 Six Day War of the Palestinian territories.

Among the civil society and human rights organizations who are members of the coalition: Hadash, Young Communist League, Academia for Equality, All That’s Left, Itach-Ma’aki- Women Lawyers for Social Justice,  Mothers Against Violence, Isha L’Isha Feminist Center in Haifa, The School for Peace at Neve Shalom,  Gush Shalom, Democracy for All, The Bloc Against Occupation, Parents Against Child Detention, Zochrot, Mother’s Cry , Yesh Gvul,  This is Not an Ulpan, Combatants for Peace, Mahsom Watch, Mesarvot, Women Against Violence, Osim Shalom – Social Workers for Peace, Oz VeShalom, Standing Together, Ir Amim, Coexistence Forum in the Negev, Parents Circle Families Forum, Psychoactive, Jordan Valley Activists, New Profile, Free Jerusalem, Rabbis for Human Rights, Mizrachi Civil Collective, Breaking Walls , Breaking the Silence, Torat Tzedek, Tandi – Democratic Women Movement in Israel, Ta’al – Arab Movement for Change,, Haqel – Alliance for the Protection of Human Rights and Mothers for Life.

An organizer from the coalition of dozens of Israeli left-wing and human rights organizations — said Friday that the police did not authorize the protest, the annual march from Dizengoff Square to Kaplan Street in Central Tel-Aviv. The anti-war protest was held in Habima Square in Tel Aviv, and during the meeting cops censuring the 10 commandments and arrested two Hadash activists for holding a sign saying – “You shall not kill.” In a video from the scene an officer is shouting “there will be no ‘Do not murder’ sign here. I call the shots.” Other activist was arrested by violence.

All Hadash MKs participated in the rally, Ayman Odeh, Aida Touma-Sliman, Ofer Cassif and Youssef Atawneh, alongside Hadash chair and former MK Issam Makhoul, Communist Party of Israel Adel Amer and former Hadash MKs Tamar Gozansky, Dov Khenin and Youssef Jabareen. During the protest Cassif said journalists that he condemned the far-right government for the “high human price” paid to retrieve earlier on Saturday four Israeli captives from Gaza. “The liberation is joyful; the price is disgraceful. There is certainly no heroism here. The blood of thousands – abductees, Palestinian civilians, Israelis and soldiers – could and should have been spared if the government of atrocities had come to a deal immediately after the October massacre and on the countless occasions since then,” Cassif added. The Palestinian death toll resulting from the horrific massacre committed yesterday by occupation forces in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza, has risen to 274, with nearly 700 people sustaining injuries, mostly civilians, according to WAFA Palestinian news agency.

Protesters at rallies across the country on Saturday night called for new elections and the return of the hostages held in captivity in Gaza, hours after the military announced that four hostages were rescued alive from central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp. While joy over the rescue of Noa Argamani, Shlomo Ziv, Almog Meir Jan and Andrey Kozlov was evident at the protests, so too was anger over the conduct of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. In Tel Aviv 33 protesters were arrested during demonstrations and that all roads near the protests were opened to traffic around midnight. At Haifa, cops brutally dispersed anti-war protesters and arrested three activists. 

In Jerusalem, after speeches ended in Paris Square, hundreds of protesters blocked the intersection outside the prime minister’s residence, sitting down in the middle of the road while chanting slogans in support of a hostage deal and against the ongoing war in Gaza. The mass act of civil disobedience caught cops by surprise, with organizers having led the general public to believe that a march to Independence Park would follow the speeches. Protesters also convened in Netanyahu’s hometown of Caesarea to call for early elections and a deal to release the remaining hostages and five were arrested.

In southern Israel, several dozen people gathered in the desert town of Mitzpe Ramon, while thousands marched up north in Haifa. Also up north, protesters blocked traffic at key intersections in protests against the government’s policy regarding ongoing Hezbollah attacks, which have resulted in eight months of internal displacement for tens of thousands of people. At Karkur Junction, a convoy of tractors joined a group of protesters who were shoved off the road by police officers for blocking traffic, while at Amiad Junction, protesters and evacuated residents blocked traffic with bales of hay and other crops, demanding to know when they would be able to return home.

Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=31906

Communist Party of Israel

End of an Era: What the Shifting Discourse on Palestine Teaches Us about the Future of Israel / by Ramzy Baroud

Photo: Znet

Reposted from Znet

If one were to argue that a top Spanish government official would someday declare that “from the river to the sea, Palestine would be free”, the suggestion itself would have seemed ludicrous.

But this is precisely how Yolanda Diaz, Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister, concluded a statement on May 23, a few days before Spain officially recognized Palestine as a state.

The Spanish recognition of Palestine, along with the Norwegian and Irish recognition, is most important.

Western Europe is finally catching up with the rest of the world regarding the significance of a strong international position in support of the Palestinian people and in rejection of Israel’s genocidal practices in occupied Palestine.

But equally important is the changing political discourse regarding both Palestine and Israel in Europe and all over the world.

Almost immediately after the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, some European countries imposed restrictions on pro-Palestinian protests, some even banning the Palestinian flag, which was perceived, through some twisted logic, as an antisemitic symbol.

With time, the unprecedented solidarity with Israel at the start of the war, however, turned into an outright political, legal and moral liability to the pro-Israel western governments.

Thus, a slow shift began, leading to a near-complete transformation in the position of some governments, and a partial though clear shift of the political discourse among others.

The early ban on pro-Palestinian protests was impossible to maintain in the face of millions of angry European citizens who called on their governments to end their blind support for Tel Aviv.

On May 30, the mere fact that French private broadcaster TF1 hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led to large, though spontaneous, protests by French citizens, who called on their media to deny accused war criminals the chance to address the public.

Failing to push back against the pro-Palestine narrative, the French government has, on May 31, decided to disinvite Israeli military firms from participating in one of the world’s largest military expos, Eurosatory, scheduled for June 17-21.

Even countries like Canada and Germany, which supported the Israeli genocide against Palestinians until later stages of the mass killings, began changing their language as well.

The change of language is also happening in Israel itself and among pro-Israeli intellectuals and journalists in mainstream media. In a widely read column, New York Times writer Thomas Friedman attacked Netanyahu late last March, accusing him of being the “worst leader in Jewish history, not just in Israeli history”.

Unpacking Friedman’s statement requires another column, for such language continues to feed on the persisting illusion, at least in the mind of Friedman, that Israel serves as a representation, not of its own citizens, but of Jewish people, past and present.

As for the language in Israel, it is coalescing into two major and competing discourses: one irrationally ruthless, represented by far-right Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, in fact, by Netanyahu himself; and another, though equally militant and anti-Palestinian, which is more pragmatic.

While the first group would like to see Palestinians slaughtered in large numbers or wiped out through a nuclear bomb, the other realizes that a military option, at least for now, is no longer viable.

“The Israeli army does not have the ability to win this war against Hamas, and certainly not against Hezbollah,” Israeli Army Reserve Major General Yitzhak Brik said in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Maariv on May 30.

Brik, one of Israel’s most respected military men, is but one of many such individuals who are now essentially repeating the same wisdom.

Strangely, when Israel’s Minister of Heritage Amihai Eliyahu suggested the “option” of dropping a nuclear bomb on the Strip, his words reeked of desperation, not confidence.

Prior to the war, the Israeli political discourse regarding Gaza revolved around a specific set of terminology: ‘deterrence’, represented in the occasional one-sided war, often referred to as ‘mowing the lawn’ and ‘security’, among others.

Billions of dollars have been generated throughout the years by war profiteers in Israel, the US and other European countries, all in the name of keeping Gaza besieged and subdued.

Now, this language has been relegated in favor of a grand discourse concerned with existential wars, the future of the Jewish people, and the possible end of Israel if not Zionism itself.

While it is true that Netanyahu fears an end to the war will be a terrible conclusion to his supposedly triumphant legacy as the ‘protector’ of Israel, there is more to the story.

If the war ends without Israel restoring its so-called deterrence and security, it will be forced to contend with the fact that the Palestinian people cannot be relegated and that their rights cannot be overlooked. For Israel, such a realization would be an end to its settler-colonial project, which began nearly a hundred years ago.

Additionally, the perception and language pertaining to Palestine and Israel are changing among ordinary people across the world. The misconception of the Palestinian ‘terrorist’ is being quickly replaced by the true depiction of the Israeli war criminal, a categorization that is now consistent with the views of the world’s largest international legal institutions.

Israel now stands in near-complete isolation, due, in part, to its genocide in Gaza but also to the courage and steadfastness of the Palestinian people, and to the global solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

Daniel Jadue, the acclaimed mayor of Recoleta in Chile, is victim of lawfare / by W.T. Whitney Jr.

Recoleta Mayor Daniel Jadue, at a 2022 May Day march in Chile. | People’s World

South Paris, Maine

Reposted from Peoples World

“After more than 10 years of corruption, crimes, and destroying the Rocoleta commune, finally the justice system begins to act and will make arrangements for the Communist mayor Daniel Jadue. I hope he goes to jail soon.” That was Richard Kast, speaking in April. Kast was the right-wing presidential candidate defeated by Chile’s President Gabriel Boric in December 2021. The food- manufacturing magnate is the son of a World War II German Army officer.

On June 3 Judge Paulina Moya ruled that Jadue would be imprisoned “preventively” on charges of bribery, mal-administration, tax fraud, and bankruptcy. Moya declared that “for Jadue to go free would endanger the safety of society.” The police in April had prevented him from boarding a flight to Caracas. She decreed “120 days of investigation” prior to Jadue’s appearance before an appeals court.  

Jadue, a former professor of architecture and urban sociology, has been mayor of Recoleta municipality in the northern part of Santiago since 2012. Responding on social media, he insisted that, “They are judging me for our transformative government. I don’t have a peso in my pocket, but they are handing out the maximum restriction.”  

The court’s decision had to do with the “people’s pharmacy” that Jadue devised for Recoleta in 2015. It also involves the spread of people’s pharmacies throughout Chile.Jadue is a national figure. His legal troubles take on added significance on that account.

Jadue is renowned for the reforms he inspired in Recoleta. In addition to the consumer-cooperative pharmacy project, Recoleta offers an “optician program,” a people’s dentistry program, an “open university,” and a “people’s bookstore.” The municipality invests $500,000 a year in 10 public libraries. It recruited physicians and constructed two medical office buildings. It builds architecturally-sophisticated apartment buildings with low-cost rentals. 

Jadue is the unusual Communist Party leader who participated in national elections at the highest level.  As presidential candidate of a left-leaning coalition in 2021, he almost defeated current president Gabriel Boric, head of a center-left coalition competing in the primary elections.

Jadue provokes the wrath of apologists of Israel.  He has participated  in pro-Palestine demonstrations outside Israel’s embassy and made public  statements interpreted by some as antisemitic. The grandson of Palestinian immigrants, he was president of Chile’s General Union of Palestinian Students and a top organizer for Latin America’s Palestinian Youth Organization.

Jadue’s book, Palestine: Chronicle of a Siege, appeared in 2013. HispanTV recently presented his 12-part documentary presentation “Window on Palestine.” Chile is home to half a million Palestinians, the largest concentration outside of the Middle East.

The prosecutor announced criminal charges against Jadue in November 2023.The people’s pharmacies, on which the prosecution of Jadue is based, are a phenomenon. Now there are 212 of them in 170 localities. Average savings on individuals’ drug purchases are between “64% and 68%.”

Recoleta and the other municipalities together formed a purchasing cooperative known as Chilean Association of Municipalities with People’s Pharmacies (Spanish initials are ACHIFARP). Jadue has been its head. At the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, ACHIFARP was under pressure to distribute healthcare supplies reliably and inexpensively.

In 2021 the Best Quality supply company complained to national g authorities that it was approaching bankruptcy, also that ACHIFARP had neither used or paid for large quantities of supplies it had ordered. A Best Quality salesman reported that Jadue had solicited a bribe. The terms were: donate to the Communist Party headquarters in Recoleta and ACHIFARP would give assurances that Best Quality would be called upon to restock the people’s supermarkets, initiated by the government.

Barbara Figueroa, secretary general of the Communist Party released a statement saying merely that, “the precautionary measure against comrade Daniel Jadue is regrettable and disproportionate, and we believe that it should be appealed. … we respect the Courts of Justice and we hope that this public stage of the investigation and trial will end up proving Daniel’s innocence”.

Some 1000 Chileans signed a letter of support for Jadue. They were “national prize winners, legislators, trade unions leaders, heads of social organizations, academics, human rights leaders, political party leaders, city councilors, jurists, and cultural personalities.” According to the letter, “This case represents not only a political and judicial persecution of a public figure, but also a potential threat to the fundamental principles of the rule of law in Chile.” 

As explained by analyst Ricardo Candia Cares,“The people’s pharmacies represent a real contribution to the health of the dispossessed who now have an alternative to the infamous pharmacy chains that collude in gouging the people … … [They] have caused the big pharmacies, or really the powerful forces powerful behind these deals, to lose huge amounts of money.”

Latin American political leaders, Daniel Jadue among them, discovered they can be removed from office or barred from electoral participation through judicial processes. In that regard, he joins presidents Fernando Lugo in Paraguay (2012), Lula da Silva in Brasil (2017), Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina (2022), Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2018), Evo Morales in Bolivia (2019), and Peru’s President Pedro Castillo (2022).  

They are victims of lawfare, described by Le Monde diplomatique in Spanish as “a new format of persecution and repression, but executed through the perverted use of the norm, mainly by using judges and prosecutors against opponents.”

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W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

After General Assembly Vote, UN Experts Demand All Nations Recognize Palestinian State / by Julia Conley

A long Palestinian flag is carried during a protest for Palestinian rights on June 1, 2024 in Rome, Italy | Photo: Stefano Montesi/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

“The recognition of the state of Palestine is not only a matter of historical justice with the legitimate aspirations of the Palestine people, but it is also an imperative need to achieve peace,” said a group of top rights experts.

Reposted from Common Dreams

After a United Nations General Assembly vote last month that made clearer than ever that global support for Israel’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territories is shrinking, top experts at the U.N. on Monday issued a demand for all nations to recognize Palestinian statehood and said such a move is a necessary step toward peace in the Middle East.

“All states must follow the example of 146 United Nations member states and recognize the state of Palestine and use all political and diplomatic resources at their disposal to bring about an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,” said the experts as Israel’s bombardment of the blockaded enclave neared its eighth month.

Palestine’s bid to become a full member of the U.N. was supported by 143 member states on May 10, and was followed by announcements by Irish, Spanish, and Norwegian officials that the three countries now recognize the occupied Palestinian territories as a state.

Israel is now joined by just a handful of countries—mostly wealthy Western nations including the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K.—in refusing to recognize Palestinian statehood.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said last week that his government’s recognition of Palestinian statehood has “a single goal: to contribute to achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”

“The recognition of the state of Palestine is not only a matter of historical justice with the legitimate aspirations of the [Palestinian] people, but it is also an imperative need to achieve peace,” said Sánchez.

The U.N. experts on Monday expressed agreement, saying the global recognition of a Palestinian state would be “an important acknowledgement of the rights of the Palestinian people and their struggles and suffering towards freedom and independence.”

“This is a pre-condition for lasting peace in Palestine and the entire Middle East—beginning with the immediate declaration of a cease-fire in Gaza and no further military incursions into Rafah,” said the experts, including George Katrougalos, independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order; Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967; and Cecilia M. Bailliet, independent expert on human rights and international solidarity.

The experts’ statement came as the number of people forcibly displaced from Rafah, the southern Gaza city, surged past 1 million as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continued its attacks there. The International Court of Justice—the top judicial body of the U.N.—ordered Israel to stop its military operations in Rafah on May 24, days before Israel killed at least 46 people by bombing a tent encampment that had been set up in a designated “humanitarian area.”

U.S. President Joe Biden last week endorsed an Israeli plan for a cease-fire in Gaza—one that was similar to a proposal made by Hamas earlier in May, which had been rejected by Israel—but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government would not agree to a permanent cease-fire until “the destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities” is complete.

Netanyahu earlier this year said he would not agree to a Palestinian state, demanding control “of all territory west of the Jordan” River and reaffirming his opposition to the two-state solution that has long been the policy objective of the United States.

“A two-state solution,” said the U.N. experts, “remains the only internationally agreed path to peace and security for both Palestine and Israel and a way out of generational cycles of violence and resentment.”

Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.